Gambia couple send daughter to UK

Mr and Mrs Fulton were sentenced to one year with hard labour

A friend of a British missionary couple serving a one-year prison sentence in the Gambia said they have sent their two-year-old daughter back to the UK.

David and Fiona Fulton were sentenced to a year in prison with hard labour last month after pleading guilty to sedition.

They had admitted sending e-mails critical of the country's government.

Pastor Martin Speed, from Westhoughton, near Bolton, said their adopted daughter Elizabeth was now with family.

Mr Fulton, 60, is originally from Troon in Ayrshire. His 46-year-old wife is from Torquay in Devon.

They had been in the Gambia since 1996.

Mr Fulton, a former army major, worked as a chaplain to the Gambian army.

His wife looked after terminally ill people and visited women in their homes and in hospital.

At the weekend the contents of a letter in which the Fultons pleaded for clemency and asked to be allowed to return to Britain was broadcast on Gambian state television.

It is still not known whether the couple will lodge an appeal against their sentence.